The High IQ In The Asylum
by AngelicDragons
Summary: When a friend is in need what does a genius with nothing but time and good intentions do.


**This little story just wouldn't leave me alone. Besides, I don't like they way they have left my two favorite characters.**

**If you are heavily involved with the inner workings of the banking system, skip this because I'm not and it will probably just annoy you.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bones. I wish I had that kind of imagination.**

* * *

Zack Addy was bored. There weren't problems to solve anymore. He was afraid that he was losing his intelligence by not being challenged. Then found out what happened to Hodgins during one of his visits. He didn't seem overly upset about it, but it bothered Zach. He read everything he could get his hands on. Not just what had happened against Pelant but also the Cantilever group after the accounts had been attacked. It only took a couple days to read everything in the main stream press. After that he started visiting alternative press and conspiracy sites. It was visiting the conspiracy sites that lost him his computer priviledges. He tried to explain to them that his friend had his fortune stolen from him by an international computer criminal wanted by the FBI and that he was looking for the money. Apparently that wasn't considered good enough reason for an accused serial killer for a secret cult to be allowed to research conspiracies on the web.

He thought about sneaking around to get back to the computer but decided his time would be better served on figuring out how to trick the monitoring software once his privileges were restored. It was harder to write a program without being able to test the code than he had anticipated so the six weeks without a computer actually elapsed before he had completed his program. It took another two weeks to finish it. After that it was surprisingly simple to install and activate his program in the system.

The first thing he did was break into the Jeffersonian servers. Angela was really good at her job. It took him twice as long to get in and three times as long to cover his tracks. He was able to see the files that she had pulled of the Cerebus servers. He found the program that not only hijacked and controlled the drone but also the sub set of code that raided the accounts. He also found the partial trace of hospital bills paid for a wounded FBI agent. Apparently they had been paid for by Pelant. He printed out the information and backed out of the servers.

Going through the code that night he found what Pelant did to be very intelligent if not a little confusing. He had used all of Hodgins credentials to access the accounts, both private and public. That made whatever he did look legitimate. What he couldn't figure out is what happened to the money. He didn't just zero the accounts. That would have been easy to see and easy to fix. He didn't just transfer the money out of the accounts. It would have been traceable. Besides, two and half billion dollars would have made a blip when being moved. The money had to be somewhere. The money for the FBI agent's surgery had come from somewhere.

Over the following weeks, Zack searched into the biggest trading houses and banks. None of them had transactions for the money. No money going in, no money going to out. No purchases, investments, transfers, consolidations, nothing. That evening, while sitting in his room he decided to go back over what he knew. One, Pelant was a computer hacker of the highest degree. Two, Hodgins' money, both personal and private was gone. Three, the accounts had been accessed by authorized credentials. If the money was gone, but not moved, then it stood to reason that it was in the same place. What if the money was still there, but the accounts had been changed. What they had seen on the computer screen was the accounts being emptied, was solely to mess with Hodgins.

The following day, Zach went back to the servers of the bank where Hodgins had one of his personal accounts. It was one of the smaller ones so it wouldn't be as noticed if he did anything. He started going through the creation of accounts during the day of the drone strike. That's when he found it. An account opened under the name of Stephen Falken. That account was made a master account for Hodgins' account and then Hodgins' account, then a secondary account was then deleted. The Falken account was then manipulated to appear as a transaction account rather than a standard account. It became an account that appeared to hold money transactions as they were being preprocessed. That meant that the money didn't show on internal audits, because it was gone, but it didn't show on external audits because it had never arrived. It was in Limbo. After four hours of searching, Zack found all the accounts under Falken's name. Almost all the money was still there, around 50 million was missing, but just out of reach. Zack went through and recreated Hodgins' primary user ids and made them the main account holder. He had problems putting the accounts back into a standard accounts, someone would probably notice what he did there, but he was already locked up, so big deal.

"There." Zack thought to himself as he walked back to his room. Next time Hodgins visited he would have some good news to share with his friend. As he headed back to his room, Zack felt a profound sense of accomplishment with what he had done. Solving the puzzle had been great, but helping his friend had been even better. Come to think of it, didn't Hodgins mention that Cam's identity had been stolen?

* * *

Hodgins was sitting at work waiting for the mass spec to finish running. He decided to log in to his account and check on things. He was still getting the hang of the whole budgeting money thing, but they were doing alright. He still wished he hadn't had to mortgage the house, but it was what it was. When the balance showed up he almost choked on his drink.

"No way." He decided to check a couple of the other accounts that had been wiped out in the crash. They showed money in them as well. Lots of money.

"ANGE!"


End file.
